


The Scrapyard Confessions

by Signe_chan, Trojie



Series: Housemates-verse [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Crack, F/F, M/M, pre-destiel, relationship drama
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-02
Updated: 2013-03-02
Packaged: 2017-12-04 02:03:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/705233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Signe_chan/pseuds/Signe_chan, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trojie/pseuds/Trojie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Charlie's internet girlfriend is a blast from the past, Dean is in a foul mood, Garth is the only person not living in a daytime soap opera, Sam gets accused of killing people with his [redacted] and our favourite Prophet of the Lord uses FEELINGS. It's super effective.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Scrapyard Confessions

Sam woke up with a start.

His face was glued to the kitchen table by his own drool. He peeled himself free, and winced. He really needed to start remembering to go to his bedroom when he was tired. His hand was locked around his cellphone, and he looked down at it reflexively and saw the list of missed calls and winced again.

This was for the best. He just needed to get his stupid gut to accept it.

Then there was a clattering noise from the living room and a yelp. In stereo. Sam was practically over the table and into the next room in a split second, yanking his handgun from his waistband, before he registered that one of the yelps was canine and the other was just a high-pitched _Frak!_ , neither of which were very supernaturally-dangerous.

In the middle of the living room floor, Charlie and Killer were tangled up with each other under a stepladder, looking guiltily and, in Charlie's case, kind of manically, up at him.

'What in Hell's name are you doing?' Sam said, putting the safety back on and the gun away again, and grabbing the ladder instead. He looked around the room as colour caught his eye. 'What the - where are the wards?'

There were posters all over the walls. Literally all over. Posters for things Sam had heard of and for things he had no clue about. There was Star Wars and Lord of the Rings and, weirdly, the Le Chat Noir poster, and for LARP events, and for lame-looking movies he vaguely recalled the theaters in Sioux Falls showing a few months ago. Not one single square inch of the goddamn walls was left blank. Sam could feel himself physically starting to itch at the idea that their wards were gone.

'Charlie,' he said, trying to stay calm. 'Please tell me -'

'They're still up,' she said, wild-eyed. 'I swear. I haven't put pinholes in them or scratched them or touched them in any way - just covered them. Promise. I worked it out really carefully. It took all night.' And he believed her, because she had the crazy look of someone who'd stayed up all night carefully arranging posters so that they'd all stay up without having to put thumbtacks into randomly-scattered painted symbols.

Also there was a tape measure on the desk, which kind of corroborated the story. But why ...

Sam suddenly remembered what day it was.

‘What time is she due?’ he asked, stepping over to help Charlie up. She blinked at him for a second then took his hand and let him pull her to her feet.

‘About eleven, I guess,’ she said with a shrug. ‘So, you see, I have like no time to get this ready and she’s going to freak out when you come bursting through a door with a gun and after months of being in a relationship which is, I should add, the longest relationship I’ve had in a while, I’m going to be dumped because I live in a house full of hunters and freaks.’

‘We’re not going to make her dump you,’ Sam said with an eye roll. ‘We know how to behave around normal people.’

‘I know you know it in theory,’ Charlie interrupted, ‘But you all seem so bad at it! I mean, alright, you’re probably the best of the house but you just came in here with a _loaded gun_. Garth is weird even before you get to the hunter thing and even weirder after that and Dean ... I don’t even know what’s going on with Dean!’

‘Me neither,’ Sam said with a shrug. ‘I tried talking to him but ...’

‘I figured. Are you sure nothing happened in Missouri?’

‘Nothing happened. Well, nothing that might put him in this mood, anyway. He was fine on the drive back up and then ... I don’t even know what he’s doing. So, yeah, maybe I can understand you keeping your internet girlfriend away from him. But otherwise, we're not so bad, are we?’

‘Sam, the house is full of weapons and books of lore. I’ve been trying to clean for days but Garth just keeps getting things out again. I can’t do this.’

‘Just calm down, alright,’ Sam said, laying a hand on her arm. ‘Look, go sleep. You should get at least a couple of hours. I’m not sure I can do anything about the books but I’ll gather up any weapons and take them to my room and I’ll try to stop Dean tearing your posters down.’

‘Thank you,’ Charlie said in a rush, launching forward and hugging Sam before pulling back. ‘You’re so saving my life. I will totally help you get laid in return for this.’

‘That’s … you really don’t need to do that,’ Sam grumbled. He wasn’t exactly ready for that yet, and he doubted anyone Charlie could find in Sioux Falls would make him change his mind. And that whole can of worms only ever ended up in disaster for him, anyway.

‘I totally will. I will do anything you want, Sam. I will even take washing-up duty if you can make it look like we’re not a house of occultist mass murderers by eleven.’

‘I’ll do what I can,’ Sam said, not bothering to point out that occultist mass murderers might not be too far from an accurate description for them.

'I love you,' said Charlie fervently. 'I mean it. Whores, trinkets, and the washing up, Sam Winchester. On my honour as a queen.' Sam shoved her up the stairs and stared into the living room, trying to work out what he could manage in the time he had left. Well, he could at least start with the weapons, right?

***

At half past ten, Sam had managed to lock all the armaments up in the gun safe or out in the Impala's trunk, intersperse the occult texts in amongst as many other books as he could find (not many) so that the whole 'library of darkness' effect was minimised, and do the vacuuming. And okay, he wasn't going to go out and buy a frilly apron but he was kind of finding the whole thing … soothing? Distracting, actually. And God, Sam could really appreciate a distraction at the moment.

Of course, this was when Garth decided to wander into the room with a bowl full of Wheaties in one hand, the prophecies of Nostradamus clamped to his side with an elbow, and a shotgun in the crook of his other arm.

'Out,' said Sam before he could sit down, pointing in the direction of Garth's seldom-used bedroom.

'Bro, I have a job to do.'

'You have a room to do it in,' Sam retorted. 'Come on, Garth, it's just a weekend. Let Charlie have one weekend of normalcy.'

'She spends most of her weekends swinging a foam sword and rescuing damsels,' Garth pointed out. 'But fine.' He squinted at Sam for a moment and then added, 'Do you need any help, man?'

'If you could go bury the sack of chicken's feet that's in the fridge and hide all the non-edible herbs out of the kitchen, that would be great,' Sam said, with some relief. Garth nodded and tipped his bowl of Wheaties up to drink the last of it, then wandered back out into the hallway.

Dean took that moment to slink past.

'Morning,' said Sam pointedly. Dean looked at him grimly. 'Jeez, did you sleep last night? Or at all in the past week?' Suddenly, compared to everyone else, Sam's four hours folded over the dining table weren't looking too bad.

Dean glared. Sam gave in. 'Coffee's in the kitchen. And Charlie's mysterious internet girlfriend will be here in -' he checked his watch '- fifteen minutes, so you probably wanna be caffeinated for that.'

Dean nodded, and the sad thing was that that was kind of progress, given the foul mood he’d been in since the day after they got back from Missouri. Sam waited until he was out of the door then turned his attention to one last sweep of the living room.

***

Sleep might be a generous name for what Charlie had been doing. She’d intended to sleep, she’d been been in bed the entire time but sleep apparently didn’t want her. It was like she couldn’t shut down the voice in her head that had been listing all the ways this was going to go horribly wrong. All the things one of the others would do or say that would totally ruin her chances. And it sucked entirely because if she was the one making the mess, at least she had some control over it - but she’d long ago accepted she had no control over Garth.

It wasn’t even just Garth. Normally you could count on Dean and Sam for focus, at least, but they were both letting her down. She’d spent nearly eight hours yesterday killing virtual zombies with Dean but it hadn’t improved his mood even a little. And Sam, Sam was subtler but there was still something wrong. Both boys were way off their game.

She just wanted to make a good impression. Normally ‘Queen of Moondoor’ was all she needed to say and the girls were lining up to get in her bed. That was pretty epic. Well, truly, that was the best thing ever. She was like catnip for geeky lesbians and she totally owned that. The thing was, an actual relationship wasn’t like hooking up at LARP. Most of the time, well, what happened at LARP stayed at LARP. You sometimes swapped Twitter details or something but that hot elf girl was hardly ever as alluring when she was complaining about the people in her office.

She hadn’t meant to start online dating, it had been an accident, but it didn’t take her long to work out this was going to be different. This wasn’t a quick fuck leading to a slow loss of interest - she was already emotionally invested before anyone had been anywhere near her vagina.

And that sucked so bad because if this went wrong, it wasn’t going to be a shrug-and-walk-away kind of breakup. It was going to be like when Rose was trapped in the other dimension and the Doctor was alone, only with less reciprocation and more guns and alcohol.

Her life was a mess.

She managed to doze for about half an hour but it was no good, and when her alarm went with fifteen minutes to go she was already awake. It was a struggle to pull herself out of bed and pour herself into some clothes, but she managed it.

Time to face the music.

She was bracing herself for the worst as she went downstairs. There was no real way to deny it. But … the posters were still up, the kitchen was exuding the smell of fresh coffee rather than rancid spell ingredients, and … okay the copy of the _Necrotelecomnicon_ sandwiched between _Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban_ and _The Last Unicorn_ in the hallway bookcase stood out like a sore thumb, but at least they'd tried?

Sam was actually scrubbing at a powder-burn on the dining table kind of desperately when Charlie went into the kitchen.

'Hey,' she said, looking around. 'Good job, Chewie. It looks like normal weirdos live here now, not, like, homicidal cultists.'

'Thanks,' Sam said, running a hand through his hair and straightening up to look around himself. 'Is 'normal weirdos' going to be okay?'

'It'll have to do,' Charlie said, offering up a quick prayer to whatever gods or goddesses or anything might be listening. 'Hopefully she wasn't expecting the Bradys ...'

'It's okay, your Highness, we are going to try not to hideously embarrass you.' Dean said, coming in. He didn't look exactly like he was pleased about the whole thing, but then he hadn't been pleased about anything since Missouri. Charlie was officially giving up on him until after all this was over and she knew whether or not she was going to continue to have a girlfriend.

Then there was the crunch of car tyres on the drive outside. Charlie forgot how to breathe. Garth appeared out of nowhere with his ninja powers and patted her on the shoulder. 'Showtime,' he said.

Fuck.

***

This is how it happened.

The car pulled up. Sam put down his cloth and stepped back so he could see the door. Charlie stepped forward, running a nervous hand through her hair, and took the door handle. She stopped for a second. They all held their breaths, even Dean had looked over his shoulder to see the arrival.

The doorbell rang. Charlie jumped. Killer, who had to this point been sleeping in the kitchen, woke with a yelp and started barking. Garth darted across the room and pushed a stray knife under a cupboard as if that would hide it. Charlie took a deep breath, and she opened the door.

‘Hi,’ she said. ‘ I mean, hi. It’s so good to finally meet you. Can I...’ she stepped forward, and Sam saw for the first time who was stood in the doorway.

His heart sank as he watched Charlie hug Becky Rosen.

***

Charlie pulled back with a grin. 'Come on in,' she said, turning around and gesturing over her shoulder to let Becky into the house.

She wasn't sure what kind of reactions she was expecting from her housemates, really, and she was still so nervous about what Becky would think of - of everything, the housemates, the _house_ , all of it, that she didn't register Dean's disbelieving face as anything out of the ordinary and only came up short when she looked at Sam.

He was staring at Becky, and Becky was kind of half staring back, half just looking around awkwardly, and Charlie's heart started to sink.

'That's Sam,' said Charlie, resisting the urge to wave a hand in front of his face to try and see if he was even awake in there. 'And this is Dean, and that's Garth. Um. Say hi, guys.'

'Hi,' said Garth, and he even offered a hand for Becky to shake, so he was clearly trying. 'Nice to meet you.'

'You too,' said Becky, finally actually making eye contact with someone. Charlie was starting to regret making their first face-to-face meet-up in her own actual house. A coffeeshop or something would have been a lot less stressful. God. What if they were actually terrifying Becky? What if she was picturing them having a torture dungeon in the basement? Charlie had made Sam lock up the panic room but still, the iron airlock door wasn't exactly something most normal people had in their houses. It could totally be mistaken for a torture dungeon.

If only her goddamn housemates could at least be friendly and less like Hitchcock extras, that would help, but no. Charlie had actually had hopes for Sam up until now, but he appeared to be stuck on the 'threatening stare' setting. Dean wasn't much better - he nodded grimly at Becky, and stuck out his hand to be shaken only when Garth elbowed him.

Jesus, this was a clusterfuck and it had only just started.

'So, I'll give you the tour?' Charlie said brightly, trying to subtly glare at Sam and get him to back off. She knew he could be a bit overprotective of everyone, but seriously, trying to terrify your housemate's girlfriend when she hadn't even said five words seemed a bit overkill.

'Please,' said Becky a bit faintly.

Charlie ignored the faint alarm bells going in the back of her head, and took Becky's hand instead. 'Come on, then,' she said. 'I'm sure the boys have plenty of stuff to be getting on with,' she added pointedly. 'We'll see them later.' She decided to start upstairs. The boys all stayed in the hallway.

Charlie couldn't shake the feeling that Sam's weird stare was boring through her.

'Did it take you long to get here?' she asked Becky. 'Um. We all kind of have our bedrooms up here, except Garth, he's technically downstairs next to the study but he tends to sleep on the couch. And Sam has this bad habit of sleeping on the kitchen table, actually, but - uh, so. You'll be in with me, if that's okay, although, the guest room is -'

'In with you will be fine,' said Becky, cracking her first smile of the entire horrible morning, which made Charlie's insides turn inside out a little bit, in the good way. 'I did come here to see you, after all.'

'Yeah. Uh, I mean. God, I'm just so happy to finally see you in person, I must be coming across as a total dork,' Charlie said in a rush. 'And I'm so sorry about my housemates. I know I told you they were a pain but seriously -'

Becky made a face. 'It's okay,' she said. 'Really. So … how about you show me your room, then? If I'm going to be staying there …'

'That sounds like a good plan,' Charlie agreed, worries starting to be overtaken by … other considerations. Becky beamed at her. 'My room is just over here -'

***

‘What am I going to do?’ Sam asked as soon as he heard Charlie’s door click shut. Dean just kind of shrugged, stalking into the living room. Sam and Garth followed him.

‘You do what you have to do, Sammy. That’s for you to decide,' Dean said, dropping onto the couch.

Sam stared at him. ‘That’s your advice? Seriously? This is your problem too, you know. You know who she is too!’

‘Yeah, but she isn’t here to seduce me while Charlie’s back’s turned. You, on the other hand, probably ...’

‘Is she really that bad?’ Garth asked. ‘I mean, I know she’s not exactly the kind of person you’d want for Charlie but you’re not her dads, you know. Is Becky really _that_ bad?’

‘Dude, you were there for the aftermath of the Vegas Wedding Incident. You know what she's capable of. Long story short, yeah, girl's definitely bad news.’ Dean said, “In fact, I kind of want to know how she even found us. She was probably stalking Sam somehow, right?’

‘Probably,’ Sam hedged. ‘But, well, we don’t know that for sure, right? Maybe she’s changed. It’s been years since we last saw her ...’

Dean snorted. ‘The look she gave you when she came in?’

‘It wasn’t that bad,’ Sam said. ‘Was it?’

‘Look, what you do is your business, she’s your stalker.’ Dean shrugged. It was like he didn't even give a damn, and it was starting to worry Sam. Normally Dean would have been all over this with theories and threats and probably holy water too. This … angry indifference … was off somehow.

‘Don’t you even care if she messes Charlie about?’ Sam asked, trying a different tactic. ‘I thought you liked Charlie.’

‘I like Charlie plenty, weren’t you just arguing that we should give Becky a try?’ Dean asked, like it was Sam who was being unreasonable

‘I don’t even know,’ Sam exclaimed in frustration, standing up again and pacing. ‘I don’t … I don’t want to ruin things for them. I know how much Charlie’s been looking forward to this and if it might be genuine … but if it were me then I think I’d want to know? But what if I ruin everything and Charlie really does love her?’

‘And what if Becky sneaks in to your room tonight?’

‘That’s exactly the kind of thing she might try,’ Sam groaned, rubbing his hands over his face. ‘I guess I have to say something, don’t I? I mean, this isn’t just going to go away?’

‘Sooner the better,’ Dean agreed. ‘Get her out of the damn house and we can all go back to acting normal.’

‘I kind of agree,’ Garth interrupted. Sam had almost forgotten he was there, and spun to look at him now. ‘The thing is, there’s no way Charlie’s going to thank you for this, so you need to do it carefully. I mean, she’s not going to be happy in any circumstance but she’s just met the girl for the first time, I think Charlie’s really taking this seriously. I’m just saying, I don’t know, go easy on her?’

Sam felt like maybe his life was slightly more insane than he'd thought, if Garth's advice was sounding sensible.

‘She’ll be fine,’ Dean said with a dismissive wave. ‘Better to tell her now. I mean, how long’s it going to last? Becky isn’t even a lesbian. That’s not the kind of shit you can change because you like someone.’

Sam didn’t have anything to say to that, though he knew he could. In fact, he probably should, but somehow it was easier to cross the room to the stairs and go up, which showed just how much he didn’t want to have that conversation with Dean.

He got as far as Becky’s door and stopped, hand on the door handle. He had to be sure about this, he couldn’t break them up for nothing. The thing was … he kind of was sure about it. Even if Becky was genuine, they couldn’t all be in the house together like this. Charlie had a right to know. He’d want to know.

He knocked and waited for Charlie to open the door.

Fuck, this was such a mess. How do you even start a conversation like this, he asked himself slightly hysterically. Should he just bowl in there with 'Hi Charlie, by the way did you know your girlfriend once drugged me with a love potion and married me in Vegas?' Or what? He still had the annulment papers, if that would help ...

Maybe he could just pretend that this wasn't really Becky, it was her good twin, or something? Or maybe he could run away and join the army, like he used to threaten when he was a kid?

Before he could make any life-changing decisions, Charlie stuck her head out. She looked rumpled and halfway between ecstatically happy and unbelievably pissed off. 'What?' she said, not opening the door up fully. Sam swallowed. 'Come on, Sam, what? This better be important.'

'I. Uh. I should have -'

' _Sam_ -' Charlie tapped her fingers on the doorframe impatiently. 'I'm kind of in the middle of something here?' She waggled her eyebrows in a disturbingly Dean-like fashion.

'We've met,' Sam blurted out. 'Me and Becky. Um. Did she tell you?' he asked, hoping against hope that actually Becky had come clean and Charlie actually already knew all of this and was just keeping quiet out of some kind of misplaced idea that it would be less awkward and -

'You've what?'

Nope.

'Actually … we were married,' Sam said, biting his lip and deciding to get the worst of it out. 'Briefly. I have the papers. I didn't really -'

Charlie gaped at him. 'You -'

'There was backstory!' Becky exclaimed from inside the room. There were some really hurried getting-dressed noises and then the bedroom door was wrenched wider. 'Sam, you can't just - I can't believe you would just _say it_ like that! That's not how it happened!'

Charlie stared at Becky. 'He's telling the truth?'

'Why would I lie?' Sam demanded, stung. 'She fucking _drugged me_ ,' he pointed out, and then regretted it instantly because jeez, he was supposed to be trying to keep this calm, and not ruin Charlie's chances at a normal relationship, because it had been years and maybe Becky had changed and, well, it certainly seemed like she was a lot more interested in the insides of Charlie's bedroom rather than Sam's, and -

'I was being manipulated by evil!' Becky retorted. 'There were totally mitigating circumstances, and he was supposed to be a fictional character, okay?'

'What, I don't -' Charlie said a little faintly. 'Can we just … okay.' She looked between Sam and Becky and back again. 'Let's go downstairs and sit down and you can tell me _everything_ , okay, from the beginning?'

***

This wasn’t happening. It just wasn’t. It had been good. Like, really good. Things had been working and then … now ...

It probably wasn’t Sam’s fault, but it sure as hell felt like it right now. Only then she felt horrible for even thinking that because, well, Becky had basically confirmed it, right? It was typical, she thought she was going to have something normal in her life, but it got tainted by association with a Winchester.

The living room was deserted when she got down and she suspected that was because the others knew and didn’t want to be here for the fallout. Dean at least had to know, if Becky had been married to Sam. He would definitely know about that. They’d probably told Garth too, or maybe he’d even been involved. Maybe she was the only one who didn’t know. God. Why was she such an idiot?

‘Explain,’ she demanded, dropping in to a chair. Sam and Becky gave each other a look, both of them a little wide-eyed, and she just wanted this entire thing to be over, but they were the ones giving each other sad looks?

Sam finally stepped forward, sitting on the couch. Becky followed a second later, claiming the other chair. At least she hadn’t tried to sit with Sam or something. This was so messed up.

‘Alright, the thing is,’ Becky said, folding her hands in her lap. She contemplated them for a second then looked over to Sam. ‘Does she even know about the books?’

‘Not as far as I know,’ Sam said with a shrug.

‘What books?’ Charlie asked impatiently. She hated this, them testing out to see how much they needed to tell her. ‘Just … just start at the start.’

‘Well, there were these books. A series, it was called _Supernatural_ and I was so into these books. It was my main fandom for years but, well, it kind of turns out they weren’t just books ...’

‘They were written by the prophet before Kevin,’ Sam supplied. ‘About me and Dean.’ He really didn't look thrilled, which Charlie could understand.

‘And it wasn’t even meant to be real!’ Becky exclaimed. ‘But then I found out it was real and I got a bit stupid, that’s all.’

‘You kept touching my arm!’

‘You have nice arms!’ Becky defended. ‘What am I meant to do, just ignore them?’

‘Normal people don’t touch other people’s arms without permission, Becky!’ Sam exclaimed.

‘Wait, hold on,’ Charlie interrupted, seeing that this conversation was about to slide wildly off topic. ‘How did arm touching end up with the two of you getting married?’

‘It wasn’t so much the two of us,’ Sam said. ‘I didn’t exactly have any say in it.’

Becky looked defensive. 'I know how it must have looked, but I swear, I didn't … I didn't realise how it worked, okay?'

Charlie buried her head in her hands. 'How _what_ worked? Guys, will you just tell. Me. Everything. Please?'

'She got a love potion off a crossroads demon and dosed me up on it,' Sam said. 'She tied me up in a goddamn cabin and tried to force-feed me more of it when it wore off.' He looked seriously pissed.

Charlie hadn't even heard about this one. She thought she'd heard all the boys' crazy stories. Dean had even told her bits about Hell - little, broken-up bits, and only when seriously, seriously hammered - told her about Sam's possession and blood-addiction and soullessness, but never about Sam's Vegas wedding, and maybe that's what was throwing her so much.

'I didn't know he was a crossroads demon!' Becky said. She was replying to Sam but it was Charlie she was looking at, pleadingly. 'He told me you just needed to get past your traumatic past and find love again! And I helped you get rid of him, in the end, so there.'

'Yeah, she did do that, actually,' Sam said, clearly relenting a little. 'She killed his little demon minion guy, too.' He shrugged at Charlie, like he was trying to keep calm over this whole thing.

'And I helped you find the Colt,' Becky added, crossing her arms.

'Also true,' Sam agreed. 'Apart from the repeated molestation, she has been kinda helpful a few times.'

Charlie looked between the two of them like she was watching a tennis match. Jeez, she didn't know what to think any more.

'Charlie?' Becky said timidly. 'Say something, sweetie.'

'I -' Charlie struggled to figure out what the hell to say, or do. 'I have to think,' she ended up saying, and she got up. She didn't know where to look, who she was talking to. She just wanted some space.

'Sure, of course,' said Becky, getting up and going like she was going to hug Charlie and then pulling away at the last moment. 'Take all the time you need, and we'll just - I'll just … wait here?'

Charlie blundered away, out of the living room, out of the house, determined that she wasn't going to cry.

***

Sam stared at his hands, because it was better than staring at Becky staring out the window. 'You know, she was terrified you'd dump her because of us,' he said eventually. He wasn't used to silences this long from Becky. 'She kept saying you'd take one look at the place and think we were Satanist mass murderers and never speak to her again. Ironic, huh?'

'I didn't want this to happen,' Becky said. Sam looked up at her. She'd turned around and was looking at him now, something angry in her expression. 'Couldn't you have - I don't know, waited and talked to me alone, or something?'

Sam couldn't help snorting with sour laughter. 'What makes you think I'd ever want to be alone with you again?' he asked. 'Come on, Becky, what did you expect?'

'I expected you to remember that actually, I've done you some good turns,' Becky said. 'I expected you to not automatically assume the worst. I thought we parted on pretty good terms, Sam. But apparently not.'

Sam clenched his fists, stung. 'Look,' he said, trying to work out how to word this. 'I'm - this house, these people, they're kind of all I've got. I'm twitchy when it comes to their safety. And this whole internet girlfriend thing … and then it turns out to be _you_ -'

'Honey, you have so many trust issues,' said Becky, shaking her head, almost sisterly in a way.

Sam rolled his eyes. 'So humour me,' he said, sighing. 'Just - did you genuinely just meet Charlie accidentally online, or -'

'Or was I stalking you?'

Sam shrugged.

Becky looked away, back out the window again. Sam presumed she could see Charlie out there or something. 'I just wanted to find out what you were up to,' she muttered. 'I didn't mean to -'

'Look like a crazy person?'

'I really like Charlie, okay?' Becky snapped. 'Honestly, really like her. And for some unknown reason she seems to like me. I didn't mean for any of this to happen. I didn't mean to fall in -' She shut her mouth tight and glared at him. 'I kind of got into LARPING a while back, and I was clicking through the Moondoor site. And there were pictures of you and Dean doing that whole Battle of the Kingdoms thing, and I was curious, okay? I did some digging. I haven't seen you in years. I … I kind of just wanted to check you were alive. _Possibly_ my motives weren't the purest, but … screw you, I have eyes and a pulse, I can look if I want.' She looked defiantly at him for a moment, but then her expression softened. 'And then I met Charlie.'

‘That bad?’ Sam asked. He knew that look, knew what it was like to find someone you weren’t looking for where you didn’t expect to find anything too, though he tried not to think about that. Becky nodded morosely, dropping her head into her hands.

‘You don’t get it, Sam. I’m a mess but she wants me, though she could do so much better. I thought … I thought if I could just talk to you then we wouldn’t have to do this ...’

‘You must have known that was never going to happen,’ Sam said with a sigh. ‘I had to tell her, come on. If she wants to believe she can take a chance on you, that’s Charlie’s prerogative, but I couldn’t let her walk into a relationship with you without knowing all the factors. She’s like a sister to me.’

‘My life is such a mess,’ Becky groaned, leaning over to put her head between her knees. Sam didn’t disagree.

***

Charlie got as far as the entrance to the scrapyard before giving up and finding a piece of ground to sit on. It was kind of hard to process. She’d planned for a lot of things, but somehow the thought that her girlfriend might secretly be stalking her housemate hadn’t even crossed her mind.

Really, it should have. Since she’d fallen in with them everything in her life had revolved around the Winchesters in some way or another, it only made sense that even her internet girlfriend wasn’t something she could have to herself.

She was so done. Should have stayed with casual sex and crushes on fictional characters. Willow and Hermione had never hurt her like this.

The question was, now, had she made the entire thing up in her head? She was good at that, seeing things that weren’t there. It was one of the reasons she liked keeping things casual. She’d known, really, that knowing someone online wasn’t the same as knowing them in person and that they could hide things but there was a difference between knowing that and being hit over the head with exactly how much they’d been hiding.

She still had a million questions, but the thing was she wasn’t sure she was going to want the answers. She needed to know if Becky did want her, or if it was just about Sam. She’d seemed pretty invested in the bedroom but maybe she was just that crazy. Maybe the most meaningful relationship Charlie had been involved in for years was actually just an elaborate way to stalk Sam Winchester.

The thing was, if she got answers to that or to any of the other questions buzzing in her brain it would mean making a decision, and she might not like the decision she had to make. Right now it was like she was in Schroedinger’s relationship. Now it was all possibility, but if she walked in there and talked to Becky she’d end up collapsing the wave form and she’d either have a girlfriend or not.

She really, really wanted to have a girlfriend, _this_ girlfriend, but there was only so much she could tolerate in the name of love.

'So I guess they filled you on in the details then,' Dean said, looming out of the shadow of a pile of cars.

'I guess I shouldn't be surprised,' Charlie replied sarcastically. 'You two screwed your way across the country for years. Statistically, this was practically a certainty.'

Dean sat down next to her and sighed. 'Nah,' he said. 'Sure, _I_ screwed my way across the country.' He sounded kind of wistfully proud of former-him. 'But Sammy? Not so much.' As if that helped in any way.

'I don't even know what to do,' Charlie said, hanging her head. 'It sounds like she was majorly in the wrong. But it also sounds like she tried to make it right in the end. I can't even freaking tell what's going on in Sam's head - one minute he's pissed with her and the next he's telling me she helped defeat evil one time …'

Dean patted her on the shoulder. 'Drink,' he said, as if it was obvious.

'Excuse me?'

'Always works for me when everything's gone up Shit Creek. C'mon, I got some good stuff hidden in the garage where Garth can't find it.'

'Dean ...' But she let him drag her by the wrist out to the garage anyway. He took a clear bottle of something golden brown and worryingly unlabelled off a high shelf, and two little glasses, and poured out two measures.

'Look at it this way,' he said, handing her one. 'Relationships you're not in can't screw you over.'

Charlie stared at him as he downed his drink. 'Okay, this is the least helpful you've ever been,' she said. And then she squinted at him. '... Are we even still talking about me and Becky?'

He blinked at her. She put the glass down on the worktop, untouched, but picked up the bottle. 'I'm cutting you off,' she said. 'I … I can't deal with whatever the hell is up with you right now, but this? Is coming with me, and you are going back into the house.'

'But -'

Charlie put on her stern monarch face. 'March, handmaiden.' He scowled, but he did what he was told.

When he'd gone she opened the bottle and took a pull. God. It tasted like drain-cleaner. And she still needed to talk to someone. Getting drunk was not going to help. Or at least, getting drunk on her own wasn't. She hid the bottle of hooch in with all the old half-empty oil canisters and took out her phone instead.

Her contacts list was not long, and it was mostly the ladies of LARP who gigglingly put their numbers in and then faded out of memory. But there was one number in there for someone who was not currently in the house and who had never been in a relationship with either Charlie, Becky, or Sam.

She dialled Kevin.

***

Sam would say the mood in the room was bad but that would be the biggest understatement of the century. He’d thought about getting up to move but a part of him didn’t want to leave Becky alone in their house. She seemed pretty broken up about Charlie and all but still, that didn’t mean she should be trusted with their stuff.

Another part of him didn’t want to leave her alone because she looked kind of like she might burst into tears at any moment. He didn’t like her very much, but he didn’t particularly want her crying all over his house either so, well ...

Garth made a brief appearance before disappearing back to his room, which said something about the general atmosphere because Garth had _never_ retreated to his room like that before.

Normally Sam liked to think he was pretty good at weird social situations. He’d had more conversations he’d really rather not have had in his life than most people, he was sure of that. He'd had _practice_ at this. The thing was, he couldn’t think of one thing to say to Becky that wouldn't make it worse. They didn’t exactly have a common ground other than what they’d been through together and that … that was definitely off limits right now.

When Dean came slamming back into the house he was actually relieved. Sure, Dean was in the foul mood to end all foul moods right now, but at least he might talk.

‘Hey,’ Sam said, sitting forward a little too quickly. ‘Where have you been?’

‘Out talking to Charlie,’ Dean said, giving Becky a glare. ‘She’ll be fine, still ordering me around like she owns me so she’ll get over it. I’m going to grab a beer, want one?’

‘Seriously?’ Sam asked. ‘A beer? You haven’t drunk this early in the day in ages.’

‘Yeah, well I normally don’t deal with this much shit before noon,’ he said, gesturing at Becky. Becky scowled but kept quiet. ‘Seriously, why are you even still here? Haven’t you made enough of a mess of things?’

‘I’m waiting for Charlie,’ she replied through gritted teeth.

‘I wouldn't bother. She’d be crazy to sleep with you now, you know. And it’s hardly going to help whatever the hell you have with Sam so just, just go!’

‘No,’ Becky said, standing up and stepping towards Dean. ‘You don’t know a thing, not about me. I’ve changed and I’m serious about this. Maybe I didn’t go about it the right way but I really am serious now. I’m not going to just leave.’

‘Yeah, you’ve changed,’ Dean said with a raised eyebrow. ‘I swear you used to like cock.’

‘Oh my god, I can’t believe you,’ Becky cried, throwing her hands up. ‘Have you never even heard of bisexuality? Or hell, of people changing? Sexuality isn’t a fixed thing, you know, it’s changeable!’

‘It isn’t,’ Dean protested, but Becky carried on talking right over him.

‘Just because you’ve only ever known me to date guys means nothing, I’ve had girlfriends before and it just goes to prove that you know nothing at all about me or you’d know that.’

‘Whatever,’ Dean growled, then turned and stalked out of the living room to the kitchen, probably to work on that beer.

Sam willed the floor to open up and swallow him.

***

Kevin's phone rang twice before he picked up.

'Kevin Tran,' he said, tinnily, like he was on speaker. Then he said, like he'd only just looked at the caller ID, 'Oh, hey Charlie. What's up?'

'Winchesters ruin everything,' she said, and she knew she was kind of whining and she didn't care. He had to understand this particular problem, surely?

'You sound like that's some kind of great revelation to you,' he replied drily.

'Don't joke around,' she ordered him. 'Seriously. I can't even talk to them right now. I need support.'

Kevin sighed. 'What's happened? Wasn't your girlfriend supposed to be visiting this weekend? Oh my God, did Dean throw borax on her like the last one? Or make the coffee with holy water again?'

'No,' Charlie said. 'I wish that's what it was. It's not even Dean that's the problem this time.'

'Sam?' Kevin asked, sounding worried all of a sudden. 'What's wrong with Sam?'

'Nothing's wrong with Sam, jeez. Sam's the _problem_. Because my girlfriend, right? The girl I've been pining over for months? Is apparently his ex-wife!'

Kevin fell totally silent, so silent that Charlie could hear traffic noise faintly in the background. 'Dude, are you driving? Where? Shouldn't you be in class right now?' she asked, falling into joint-housemate-mother mode out of reflex.

'I'm just running an errand,' Kevin said shortly. 'What do you mean, ex-wife?'

'Apparently Becky Rosen was Becky Winchester for about three weeks or something. Some kind of demon was involved, I don't even know, all I know is they're sitting in the living room bickering about whether or not she was being manipulated by evil, Dean's hiding hooch in the garage and thinks all relationships _are_ evil, and Garth has totally disappeared, and I don't know what to do!'

'So … you called me.'

'Who else have I got, dude? Cas and Benny don't have phones, no-one in my guild is going to believe me about any of this, and your mom is terrifying. Plus you're the closest thing I have to a gal-pal.' Charlie knew she was babbling, but that last bit should not have come out out loud.

She could just about picture Kevin's face. It was not a happy face.

'Alright. Well. What are you going to do?' Kevin asked after a long moment. 'I mean, I get how this is a freaky situation, but you can't just sit here on the phone to me forever.'

Charlie had been twisting a lock of hair frantically through her fingers and now she appeared to have tied herself to her own scalp. She wrenched at it. 'I … I don't know,' she said, fighting panic. 'What can I do?'

Kevin sighed. 'Have you talked to them?'

'They tried to explain, and I think I got most of it, but it was kind of confused.' She managed to free herself, almost dropping the phone in the process. Goddammit.

More traffic noise - horns beeping, for a start. Then Kevin said, 'Okay. You should start by talking to Becky.'

'But what if -'

Kevin made an irritable noise in the back of his throat. 'What if what? You can't just not go back in there ever again, Charlie. Man up. Either you want to try and work it out, or you're too creeped out to even consider it. Those are both valid options. What _isn't_ a valid option is sitting in the dirt outside the garage and letting the Winchesters ruin your love-life just by proximity.'

'You sound like your mom.' He was right. God. He was usually right, which was the scary thing, and which Charlie tried not to think about too hard because she knew he had the whole prophetic dream thing going on, plus an IQ through the roof, and you could never tell if he was predicting the future or just being a know-it-all, but … yes. He was right. 'Okay,' she said. 'Okay. I'm gonna go talk to Becky.'

She stood up, feeling determined and terrified.

'Hey Charlie,' Kevin said, softer this time. 'Hang in there. It's gonna be okay.'

She really hoped that was a prophecy.

***

‘Alright,’ Charlie said, walking through the door like she was on a mission. Becky’s head snapped up and she smiled for the first time since Charlie had walked out of the door. Really smiled, and Sam realised she was actually really pretty when she smiled. ‘I’m going to ask some questions and I want some answers. Real answers, not arguments and blame. Alright?’

‘Yes,’ Becky said quickly, sitting forward in her chair. ‘Anything.’

‘Look, do you want me to leave?’ Sam asked, moving forward himself. ‘Maybe this is a conversation the two of you should have alone.’

‘Oh no, you’re a part of this too,’ Charlie said, laying a hand on his shoulder. He winced and sank back into the chair. He really didn’t want to be here for this, but he kind of got what she was saying. ‘Alright, first I need to know if you only started talking to me because of Sam.’

‘Not … not entirely,’ Becky said, flushing. Charlie didn’t look amused, just raised an eyebrow and waited for her to continue. ‘Alright, so I only contacted you because I saw pictures of you talking to him at Moondoor on the website and, well, you seemed like the person to talk to if I wanted to come to LARP and I thought if I did I might see Sam ...’

‘Yeah, I remember we started talking like that,’ Charlie confirmed. ‘I didn’t know you only wanted to LARP because of Sam but, whatever.’

‘Oh no, I totally wanted to LARP anyway,’ Becky protested. ‘I just … I picked Moondoor to try with because of Sam, so I didn’t technically lie ...’

‘Did you know he was my housemate?’

‘I kind of worked it out,’ Becky admitted, still flushing. ‘But that’s not why I’m here. I didn’t even really try to talk to Sam, I went upstairs with you.’

‘But you didn’t think you should tell me about you and Sam before? Even though you’d guessed that we lived together?’

‘I thought you wouldn’t want to meet up if I told you,’ Becky protested, sitting further forward in her chair and reaching out for Charlie. Charlie was already out of reach but she stepped back anyway.

‘Yeah, pretty much,’ Charlie agreed. ‘I can’t believe you sprung this on me!’

‘Look,’ Sam said, daring to interrupt. Charlie gave him a worried look, which made Becky glare daggers at him, as if he were responsible for what was going on. ‘You’re upset, and you need to make an informed choice. I’m going to go make some lunch for us all, and Becky can tell you all the stuff she should have told you about me and her. Alright?’

‘I guess,’ Charlie said. She waited while Sam moved then took the seat herself, facing Becky down across the coffee table. Sam made himself scarce, heading to the kitchen. Dean was already gone again, as were a few bottles of beer. Sam wasn’t even going to try tackling that one yet.

As he prepared to face the horror that was their fridge, he checked his phone for the third time that morning, and told himself it was a good thing there weren’t any missed calls.

***

The sun had moved and it was shining in through the living room windows when Becky finally sat back, when they both sort of ran out of words. Huh. Charlie wasn't sure how long they'd even been talking for. Ages, apparently. Sam had come in and left some sandwiches, but they hadn't touched them. Charlie couldn't even really remember when he'd done it.

She knew she had to make a decision. She still didn't know which one, though.

It's not as if anyone in this house was completely innocent of being an utter idiot. Or being possessed by evil. Or just being a giant bag of dicks because of whatever reason. She couldn't hold the shit Becky had done against her, not forever. Charlie was pretty sure by this stage that Sam's massive, terminal case of paranoia over Becky's motives was wrong. Okay, Charlie knew she was pretty good at convincing herself of her own fantasies sometimes but … there was definitely something there, between her and Becky. And her stomach did flips just looking at her, when she was trying so hard to be sensible about this. That didn't help.

But can you just … ignore the history people have? Would it be fair to the rest of the house to bring Becky into the mix? Was it fair to Becky to expect her to put up with all this crazy? On the other hand, was Charlie willing to just let stupid Winchester issues ruin something that could be so, so good?

God, this just … this blew. They'd been talking it over long enough that that was late-afternoon golden sun slanting in through the windows and Charlie still had no goddamn clue what to do, just a mess of guilt and worry churning in her gut.

'Charlie?' Becky said, biting her lip. 'Say something?'

'This isn't fair,' said Charlie, staring at her hands. 'I just wanted us to spend a weekend in bed and hanging out and having fun, and … I really wanted something normal. Just this one thing in my stupid, crazy life, I wanted to be normal.'

'Normal's overrated,' Becky said with a tiny, shy laugh. She sounded nervous.

'Is it? Really, though?'

There was a long, horrible moment, and then Becky said softly, 'Do you want me to go?'

'I -'

Charlie didn't know. She really didn't. But before she could say anything either way, the kitchen suddenly exploded with the sound of Killer's frantic barking.

***

Sam had fallen asleep over the kitchen table again. He only realised when the barking woke him up. 'Hey, boy,' he said, reaching out for his frantically-bouncing, noisy dog. Killer slipped out of his grasp though and skidded into the hallway, heading for the front door. Sam, still kind of half-asleep, chased after him.

Whoever it was had already let themselves in and was bending over, patting Killer. 'Hey, boy,' they said. 'Good boy. Come on, let me past.'

Sam had a sudden, violent attack of denial over who it was that had just walked into the house. Not this. Not on top of everything else.

Not Kevin.

But the universe continued on ignoring his wishes, and Kevin straightened up, and saw Sam standing in the doorway to the kitchen. Ten feet suddenly seemed like the shortest distance in the world to Sam as he watched Kevin swallow, hard, and lick his lip nervously before saying, 'Hey, Sam.'

'You're supposed to be in class,' Sam said reflexively. 'I mean. Shit. Uh, hey, Kevin.' Smooth, Winchester. Real smooth. He told his brain to shut up. 'You … drove all this way?'

'You weren't answering your phone,' Kevin shrugged. 'What was I supposed to do?'

Sam blinked at him. 'Not come home in the middle of the semester?' he said. 'Concentrate on study? See your new girlfriend?'

Kevin winced, and then glared. 'It'd be a lot easier to concentrate on study if I knew you weren't freaking out -'

'Who's freaking out?' Dean was coming down the stairs. 'Kev? What're you doing here?' Garth was behind him, carrying a bottle of beer and one of Bobby's old books on skinwalkers, which probably meant that at least _one_ of them had been getting something useful done today.

Just to complete the whole freaking picture, Charlie and Becky stuck their heads around the living room door. Sam willed Kevin not to say anything stupid.

'What's up, Kevin?' Garth asked, slipping out from behind Dean to get to the bottom of the stairs first. 'You have another vision, dude? You okay?'

'No,' Kevin said. 'I'm fine, I swear, I just came to see Sam.' He folded his arms.

'Okay,' said Dean slowly, clearly seeing that there had to be something more to it than that. 'Then is _Sam_ okay?'

Everyone apparently then had to swivel to look at Sam, like this was some kind of awful drama show and the camera was now on him.

Please, Sam thought fervently. Please don't say anything -

'He's fine,' Kevin said levelly, staring Sam straight in the eyes. 'Except for how he's freaking out about us sleeping together at Apocalypsemas and now he won't return my calls.

Crap.

'Wait -' said Sam, holding up his hands in a futile gesture. But then everyone else started talking at once.

'Dude,' said Garth, whistling.

'What -' said Dean, and he looked like someone had punched him. 'You did _what_?'

'Son of a _bitch_ ,' said Charlie and Becky in chorus.

Sam wanted the Earth to open up and swallow him. And he'd already been there, done that, bought the t-shirt, so he knew what he was talking about. It would have been a better option than having to stand here with Dean's disbelieving stare and Charlie and Becky suddenly whispering behind their hands and Kevin's utterly defiant, chin-in-the-air look, like he was daring Sam to deny it.

Sam wasn't going to deny it. He was going to _ignore it_. There was a difference. Because one of them had to be a grown-up, and Kevin was supposed to be getting out of this goddamn life, and he had a girlfriend, and Sam was determined that he was not going to ruin all of that just because he couldn't keep it in his goddamn pants and Kevin was clearly too young to make sensible decisions -

But then Becky broke the growing, pregnant silence by making a worried noise. 'That's … not good?' she said, looking between Sam and Kevin with a concerned look on her face.

'Of course it's not good,' Dean growled. 'My brother's banging the jailbait Prophet of the Lord.'

'Hey,' Kevin said, indignant. 'I'm not -'

'And anyway, it's not like you have much judgement when it comes to Sam either,' Dean pointed out. Not helping. Sam glared at him and noticed Charlie doing the same thing.

Sam gave up. 'What's not good?' he asked, wearily.

'This,' said Becky, as if that helped. She looked around at everyone's confused faces. 'I mean, we did a group reread of the books, once, on morethanbrothers.net? And we crunched a few numbers, and uh. Well.'

'Spit it out,' Dean growled impatiently.

'Everyone who sleeps with Sam dies,' Becky let out in a rush. 'Or they're evil. Mostly both. Um. Or they're you.'

Dean opened his mouth to argue and she hurried on, 'Okay, no, I know, not you, - but uh, I think I still have the spreadsheet with the graphs if you want to check. It was pretty tightly correlated. Either Sam just has really bad timing or he kind of kills them with his -'

'Okay I think that's enough of that line of conversation,' Dean said hurriedly, because apparently under all his stupid moods at the moment he still had some kind of care for Sam's feelings.

'That's enough of _everything_ ,' Sam snapped, feeling his face heat up like wildfire. 'I’m going out.’

There were sounds of protest but he ignored them, pushing past Kevin and out the door. He hadn’t really expected to make an escape so he wasn’t surprised when the door banged again a second later. He didn’t stop, just headed off into the mess that was the scrapyard. Hopefully Kevin (it had to be Kevin) would get tired and leave him alone.

He’d been hoping for that for weeks, though, and it hadn’t happened. Longer, really. Since this entire mess started. He should have stopped it all back then, before it really became a thing. He’d tried when Kevin broke away for college but, as Apocalypsemas showed, he was crap at that. Self-control was still something he had a problem with, turned out.

‘Just … just listen to me,’ Kevin shouted behind him, but Sam didn’t want to listen. Listening was where he went wrong. In the time they’d been a thing he’d resolved a dozen times to end it, but then he always listened to Kevin, and who the fuck had taught that kid to be so damn persuasive? He’d listen to him and he’d end up thinking ‘oh, a little longer won’t hurt’ and so it went on. But not now.

He slowed to a stop eventually, knowing this was a problem he couldn’t literally outrun. Kevin didn’t stop until he was gripping Sam’s arm.

‘What is your problem?’ he asked, gasping for breath. ‘We need to talk about this, Sam!”

“We don’t need to talk,’ Sam protested. ‘You need to go back to school and study and have a normal life. I am _doing the right thing_ here.’

‘Bullshit,’ Kevin spat, clutching Sam’s arm tighter. ‘You are not. You haven’t even asked me what I want, how can that be the right thing?’

‘You don’t even know what you want,’ Sam protested, shoving Kevin away. ‘You’re too young! You’ve always been too young, I should never have touched you in the first place. Don’t you even see that college is meant to be your way out of this? Your hand up to finally getting a normal life? That’s why I broke it off before you went, that’s why I’m ignoring your calls. You don’t need this life! You can have a degree and a job and a normal relationship and eventually you’ll stop visiting and it’ll just be one of those things so just … just let it go.’

‘No,’ Kevin hissed. He grabbed for Sam’s arm again but Sam dodged. ‘No, you complete idiot. I’m not you. This what _you_ wanted from college, not me. I know I wanted a normal life back before we closed the gates to Hell but, fuck you, that was a long time ago. Whatever you think about me, I am an adult, and if you’ll admit I’m old enough to choose a college then I’m old enough to choose who I have a relationship with too. And I want you!’

'And what about Leticia, huh?' Sam demanded, taking another step back. Kevin kept on coming forward, on the attack like they'd taught him years ago. 'Does she know you're here? _Why_ you're here?'

He hoped not. He hoped Kevin had at least done one sensible thing and kept his mouth shut so he'd still have someone to go back to when he finally accepted that Sam wasn't going to let this happen any more.

'Oh my God,' Kevin practically snarled. 'She's _fake_ , Sam, I made her up! I wanted to see if you'd at least get jealous.'

'Why would I be jealous?' Sam asked, feeling a sinking pit open up in his gut. Because he had been, God, he really had, but he'd reminded himself that it was what he wanted for Kevin, he'd forced himself to be okay with it, because not being okay with it made him an even worse person than he already was. He'd asked questions, he'd tried to be encouraging. 'It's what you were supposed to -'

Kevin rolled his eyes. 'Don't you get it? There is no 'supposed to'. There's no perfect formula for a life, Sam. You just do the things that make you happy.' He stopped trying to corner Sam, and just stood there, defiant. 'College makes me happy, but it won't be forever. I _can't_ let this go. I have this stupid Divine Purpose shit going on, remember? Prophets are for life, not just for when there's a crisis. And you guys understand that. You know stuff about me I could never tell anyone else, ever, unless I wanted them to send me to therapy. This place is my home. I'm happy here. I'm happy with _you_ , or I would be if you'd just let me in.'

He shrugged. 'Please? Sam, please. Just trust me - I want this. You want this. It can work, I swear.'

Sam wanted to hold him really, really badly. He was almost itching with it because of course he wanted this. Kevin was … Kevin was something else and he just wanted ...

Before he could do anything Kevin stepped forward, right up to his chest, and wrapped his arms around him like he intended to cling to Sam for dear life. And Sam _knew_ he shouldn’t, but somehow then it was the easiest thing in the world to lift his arms to wrap around Kevin too. It was familiar and everything he wanted and then from there it would have been impolite not to kiss him.

Kevin seemed to agree with that sentiment, at length and with a passion.

Sam forced himself to pull back after a while to look down at Kevin. A look at his kiss-swollen lips, the general look of abandon about him, and Sam didn’t even wait for an invitation to dive back in. It might end badly, but maybe Kevin was right. A perfect life wasn’t going to fall into his lap, so he might as well live with, and find happiness in, the one he had.

***

‘Oh thank God,’ Becky exclaimed, leaning against the window pane. ‘They’re finally kissing.’

‘I was starting to think they were never going to make it,’ Charlie agreed. She snapped a few pictures on her phone for later use. She and Becky were sitting side by side on her bed, looking out over the scrapyard. Spying on Sam and Kevin was, weirdly, the best thing she’d done all day other than the time between Becky turning up and everything falling apart.

It was weird, but in an odd way Sam and Kevin like this worked. She could _see_ how it worked. They’d always been close. She’d always just thought they were best friends or something, but it totally made sense for them to be sleeping together. It was insane, of course, but in a way that made a twisted kind of logic.

Kind of like her and Becky.

Charlie fidgeted on the bed, thinking. Because the fact of the matter was that she liked Becky, still, in spite of everything. Hell, if Kevin of all people could work up the courage to drive all the way here and claim his man then maybe it was time for her to take a chance too.

She reached out to touch Becky’s face, and the other woman turned to look at her. Charlie leant in before she could regret it for what was, almost definitely, the most awkward kiss of her life. Stupid angle, both of them hesitant. She pulled back and laughed. Becky looked at her and blinked.

‘I guess I don’t need to go, then?’ Her smile was blinding.

‘No, we officially won’t be the weirdest couple in the house so, well, let’s see what happens?’

‘I can do that,’ Becky agreed. Their next kiss was much better, good enough that both of them forgot all about Sam for a good long while after that.

***

All said, it was probably the weirdest meal that had ever happened in the house - including Apocalypsemas. Garth had finally emerged at least - he was the one who suggested ordering Chinese. They all ate together in the living room, as was the unspoken rule of a new Chinese order (leftovers were fair game, which hopefully meant less stuff in the fridge to evolve into Evil).

‘So,’ Garth said, handing out the cartons. ‘I guess we need to re-prioritise soundproofing on Sam’s D.I.Y. list?’

‘We can be quiet,’ Kevin protested. ‘We were sneaking off together for ages before I went to college, and none of you ever guessed.’

‘I didn’t need to know that,’ Dean protested, grabbing his food. ‘In fact, I’m just going to pretend today didn’t happen.’

‘It has been kind of an awful day,’ Charlie agreed, letting her head fall on Becky’s shoulder. ‘I think declaring it a write-off is the only sensible thing. In fact, I think after this I’m just going to go back to bed for the rest of the day.’

‘I’d better keep you company,’ Becky agreed, taking her hand. ‘I wouldn’t want anything terrible to happen to you.’

‘Oh my God,’ Kevin said, leaning back so that his shoulder rubbed against Sam’s in a way he probably thought was really subtle. ‘Are you two going to be like this all the time from now on?’

‘You’re one to talk, Mr "Walks into the middle of the room and tells everyone about his sex life". How did you even sneak out at Apocalypsemas? I thought your mom was sleeping on your floor?’

‘I think Benny gave her the guest room or something,’ Kevin said with a shrug. ‘It doesn’t matter, I still don’t want to know what you and Becky are going to be doing tonight.’

‘And I don’t want to hear about what you are Sam are doing, so we’re even,’ Charlie said with a grin.

‘I don’t want to know what anyone’s doing,’ Dean growled. ‘This day is definitely going to be wiped from the records.’

‘You know Sam’s still going to be dating Kevin tomorrow, right?’ Garth asked, feeding Killer noodles. ‘Blocking out today is hardly going to remove all your mental scarring.’

‘I bet they’re going to be obnoxious now we know about it, too,’ Charlie said gleefully. ‘I bet they’re the kind who sit on the phone and go ‘No, you hang up first’.’

‘We are not!’ Sam and Kevin protested together.

‘Look,’ Garth said. ‘They’re already speaking in tandem, it’s only a matter of time before they start picking out his and his towels and using pet names for each other.’ 

'I will kill you all with my bare hands if you don't shut up and eat,' Dean threatened, and for a little while it worked and they ate in silence. Killer wandered around like a living vacuum cleaner and attempted to fight Sam for a carton of sweet and sour briefly, before returning to Garth and the bounty of noodles. Charlie tried to feed Becky prawn crackers, which only ended up in mess and giggling, and distracted everyone enough that they didn't notice the flap of a trenchcoat in the corner.

'That doesn't look very hygienic,' said Cas, squinting at them.

'Holy crap,' said Becky, startled and half-choking on cracker shrapnel.

'Hey, Cas,' chorused Sam and Kevin. Charlie started laughing. They glared at her, also in tandem, which just made her giggle harder.

'Cas,' said Dean, nodding at him … and then going back to his Chinese food. Charlie narrowed her eyes at him. Cas didn't move, just stood looking at Dean's back with a kicked-puppy expression, and Charlie started forming a specific conclusion about the reason for Dean's current monumental, epic case of assholeishness.

'Come sit down,' Charlie said, patting the floor next to her and smiling at the angel. 'Want some fried rice?'

'Thank you,' said Cas gravely, sitting.

Immediately, Dean jumped up like he'd been scalded. 'I'm gonna hit the hay,' he said. 'Gotta get on with the whole 'forgetting this day ever happened' thing.' He glared around the circle, or at least, as far round as it took to include Sam, Kevin, Becky and Charlie, but no further. 'I hear anything that makes me want to bleach my brain, you're all sleeping in the garage from here on out.'

He stomped off, and Charlie watched Cas watch him leave. Shit. That stupid, asshole Winchester. What the hell was he playing at?

'What could he hear that would make him "bleach his brain"?' Cas asked, looking worried. 'I am assuming that he is employing hyperbole?'

'Sex noises,' said Garth, peering into a food carton. 'Apparently this house is now the loveboat, or something. Have you been introduced to Becky, by the way? Becky Rosen, meet Castiel, Angel of the Lord. Castiel, Becky. She's Charlie's internet girlfriend.'

Cas and Becky shook hands solemnly. 'I believe we have actually been briefly acquainted,' Cas said.

There was a slow-dawning look of realisation (and glee) on Becky's face. 'Oh my God,' she said. 'You're Dean's -'

Charlie elbowed her hurriedly.

'- best friend,' Becky said, coughing.

'And you are here to make sex noises with Charlie?' Cas asked with polite interest.

Becky turned an adorable shade of pink. Charlie decided to rescue her. 'Actually I think the noises Dean's mostly concerned about are going to be coming from Sam,' she said, pointing at him.

Sam also turned a (slightly less adorable, to Charlie's way of thinking) shade of pink. 'There aren't going to be any noises,' he said heatedly.

'That doesn't mean there's not going to be any sex,' Charlie returned as sweetly as she could.

Cas squinted around the room like he could work out what the hell was going on, and seemed to reach the conclusion that actually, he couldn't.

‘Kevin and Sam are a thing now,’ Garth supplied helpfully.

‘A thing like, Kevin walked in the door and demanded that Sam take him in a manly fashion,’ Charlie elaborated.

‘I did no such thing,’ Kevin said, a blush rising on his cheeks. ‘And how do you even know who’s going to be doing the taking?’

'Well -' Becky started.

‘Kevin, just stop talking,’ Sam said with a sigh. ‘Cas, me and Kevin are kind of in a relationship now. As are Charlie and Becky. It’s … been a busy day.’

‘It would seem so,’ Cas agreed, looking intensely around at them. For a few seconds he contemplated them then, just like that, he was gone. Becky almost choked on her noodles again when suddenly Cas wasn’t there any more.

‘You guys,’ Charlie said in a stage whisper. ‘Do you think something finally happened between Dean and Cas?’

‘You mean something’s really going on between them?’ Becky asked, sitting forward in her chair. ‘I thought that was just more subtext?’

‘What?’ Sam asked.

‘I kind of read a few of Chuck’s unpublished manuscripts. I mean, it was pretty blatant. ‘I’m the one who gripped you tight and raised you from perdition’, and all the eye sex. But I thought it was just subtext, you know. Not canon.’

‘I can’t believe you’re using those words to describe real life,’ Kevin said with a sigh.

‘Look,’ Sam interrupted. ‘I don’t know if anything’s going on with Dean and Cas, but if it is it’ll probably run its own course like everything with them does. Maybe then Dean’ll stop being such a dick to everyone. But, for tonight, can we please all agree we’ve had enough drama and eat our Chinese?’

‘Amen to that,’ Garth said, raising his chopsticks in salute.


End file.
